Michael Laudrup feels the 4-3 defeat to Norwich has taught Swansea they cannot afford to believe the hype.

Swansea's recent run had seen them pick up draws against Chelsea and Liverpool, and record wins over Newcastle, West Brom and Arsenal, and they were fancied by many to pick up another three points against the Canaries.

But an abject first-half display put paid to those hopes as goals from Steven Whittaker, Sebastien Bassong and Grant Holt gave the visitors a 3-0 half-time lead.

Swansea rallied through goals from Michu and Jonathan de Guzman before Itay Shechter had an equaliser ruled out after Michu was adjudged to have fouled Mark Bunn.

Robert Snodgrass then made the win safe for Norwich with a fantastic free-kick, before Michu grabbed a late consolation.

Laudrup was honest enough to admit his side had not deserved anything from the game after their performance during the opening half, and believes the Swans may have got a bit carried away following their recent run.

He said: "I think the players realised you can't play at 90 per cent at this level, you have to play at 100.

"This team has shown more than once that they have a lot of character, and I don't think it would be fair to criticise us because of one bad half.

"We have given so much in the last few games, everybody is allowed to play bad but it was a pity as with a slightly better performance in the first half we would have won.

"It's a lesson for us that we have to be at 100 per cent. You can't always play well but in recent weeks we have played Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City and we conceded an average of three chances in each game.

"Norwich had six in the first 45 minutes, and three of them were goals. So either Norwich are better than those teams or we did not play very well."

But Laudrup admitted he had been wary of a drop-off in Swansea's performances after watching them climb to the lofty heights of seventh in the Barclays Premier League table.

"I expected that reaction sooner or later," he said.

"When you do well suddenly the spotlight is on you, especially if you are doing well against the big teams, and in the last week everyone has spoken about us and we have been on national TV," said the Danish manager.

"When everyone tells you you are fantastic, you may believe it and you think you can play 10 per cent less and if everybody does that you get punished.

"At half-time everyone switched on and we played very well in the second half, but it wasn't enough."

A thrilling encounter was sadly marred by an alleged racist gesture towards Bassong as Norwich celebrated their fourth goal, with police arresting a 23-year-old Swansea fan within minutes of the incident occurring.

Norwich manager Chris Hughton voiced his disappointment at the incident, but praised Swansea's handling of the matter.

But Hughton did not want his side's first away win of the season to be overshadowed, and he praised his players for embarking on their current nine-match unbeaten run in the league after making a slow start to the campaign.

The current sequence is Norwich's best in the Premier League and he said: "I am very proud of the players, they have put in a tough shift in every game and fortunately for us we have showed enough resilience to see it through.

"The players deserve everything, they are the ones who identified that we did not have enough points earlier in the season and went about creating enough to change that."